The prime minister told the Institute for Public Policy Research in London that it was time to replace the compensation culture with a “common sense culture”.

But experts have said that the 24% drop was unlikely to be a good reflection of future trends.

Rita Donaghy, chair of conciliation service Acas, said that collective cases in 2003 – including applications by 7,000 members of Jobcentre Plus over the compulsory wearing of ties at work – had forced figures up artificially and the real fall in applications in 2004 was much smaller.

Mike Huss, senior employment law specialist at law firm Peninsula, said a combination of growth in ‘no win, no fee’ organisations and an increase in employee rights meant the number of tribunal applications “will certainly rise over forthcoming years”.

It also seems that the new statutory grievance procedures introduced in October last year have helped to delay the number of claims rather than resolve them.

Paul Lambdin, an employment partner at law firm Stevens & Bolton, said the procedures meant that claims were taking longer to process and were actually generating claims themselves.

“I am already seeing claims coming through because of employers allegedly not going through the procedures properly,” he said. “I would expect a surge in the number of applications around autumn because of this.”

Donaghy added that it was too early to tell whether the grievance procedures were having the desired impact.

“It’s very difficult to say if they are working,” she said. “It would be very nice to be able to flatter the government, but I don’t think it would be right to do that.”

The four-step statutory grievance procedure

An employee involved in disciplinary proceedings will receive a letter outlining the problem and providing information about the complaint

The employer holds a meeting with the employee

The employer makes a decision

The employee can then appeal against the decision

If this procedure is not followed, then any dismissal will be counted as unfair, which in turn may lead to increases in compensation for the employee, sometimes by as much as 50%.